Pity the Patagonian toothfish. It was discovered, commercially speaking, only in the past decade, living in freezing waters at depths only a few score species can survive. Now, it faces extinction, after being fished at the rate of 100,000 tonnes a year by unlicensed vessels in the South Atlantic and Antarctic.

You thought piracy was, like Johnny Depp's Pirates of the Caribbean , about stolen Inca gold? Nope. Nowadays, you get long, thrilling chases through iceberg-ridden seas by the international law-enforcement agencies of pirate trawlers bearing merely the toothfish. That was the drama of the Viarsa, a vessel chased for more than 20 days by Australian and South African vessels and a British warship until it was finally captured last week.

As well as its small, sharp teeth this fish has white flesh surrounded by rich oil and relatively few bones: a delicacy and a health food. The Japanese, whose love of fish combines with unscrupulousness about its provenance, have taken to it. It is also eaten in fashionable American restaurants - including the parent branch of Nobu - and in the European Union. For those who like to think that eating fish - as opposed, say, to veal - endows moral superiority, the case of the toothfish is cause to think again.

The pursuit of pleasure at the table nowadays is as expensive, fashionable and ethically charged as any of the more obvious consumer obsessions. Food is our upfront pleasure and, as the case of the toothfish suggests, if we're eating for pleasure, we must still consider the ethics involved.

There was another, more hackneyed gastronomic problem last week. Animal liberationists vandalised the home of Laurent Manrique, a French Buddhist chef, whose offence was to popularise foie gras among wealthy diners at his Aqua restaurants in California. Animal lovers say foie gras is cruel because it is produced by feeding ducks or geese excessively, to the point where their livers swell almost to bursting point.

These two cases show that sophisticated spending nowadays takes the form of eating well, eating out and eating products that are costly, hard to come by, or difficult to rear. It's a literal take on the notion of conspicuous consumption. We're still obsessed with body image and weight, but we've moved on from the dreary puritanism that equated nice with naughty. Food obsessions are now as fashion-led and as changeable as fashions in clothes.

Indeed, given that the celebrity status of chefs - Jamie, Rick, Gordon et al - has outstripped that of fashion designers, there's a case for saying food shopping is more of a preoccupation than buying clothes. And some of the interesting food shops - think Harvey Nichols' food market or Notting Hill's The Grocer - bear more than a passing resemblance to cutting edge fashion outlets.

The rows over fish and foie gras remind us, however, that even if we've recovered from the old secular self-denial, the middle-class pleasure eaters need to agonise, asking how the food was produced, if it is cruelty-free, how far it has travelled and if it is organic. The good news is that you end up with things which are likely to be great to eat.

The pleasure eaters have rediscovered meat. The most surprising trend of the year has been the resurgence of the carnivore. It's a trend towards ethical meat eating that the food writer Frances Bissell pioneered years ago with her Organic Meat Cookbook . She eats foie gras - organically produced.

The menu at Smiths restaurant in London's Smithfield not only tells you what type of meat is on offer, but the herd, its age at slaughter and how long it was hung. The waiters will even tell you what the animal was fed.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, whose next cookbook will be simply called Meat , says there has been a shift in attitudes. 'There is a new feeling that meat is precious, or at the very least [we are] respectful of the animal that produced it. For years, the people marketing meat pushed the gap between the animal and the meat further apart. Now that is closing.' This seems to be borne out by the new programmes on TV, like his own and Rick Stein's, which focus on how food is reared - and killed.

There are other reasons for the meat revival, among them the passing of the foot and mouth epidemic and BSE, and the emergence of the Atkins diet, which allows people, in essence, to eat as much meat as they like as long as they shun the potatoes.

Nigel Slater, The Observer food writer, agrees that meat is back, but is equivocal about it: 'Long term, I think the writing is on the wall for the meat industry, but we are going through a short-term blip of rampant meat eating.'

Slater sees this as 'a long, last fling. At the end of the day, killing an animal just because you fancy a grilled chop is nothing short of murder. It is just a pity that it tastes so damned good.'

Yet our eating habits are still more discriminating than before. It's one reason why the farmers' markets have taken off. They combine good food with the likelihood that it has been produced in a way we can live with. The food is local, or at least British. Every Friday and Saturday, at London's Borough market - now a leading tourist destination - you have to beat the punters off with sticks from the organic vegetable stalls. Meat producers there can answer questions about how their beasts are raised. One Cumbrian farmer now sells 70 per cent of his produce here.

The trouble is, the good gourmet food is purchased overwhelmingly by the middle classes. The gloomy statistic about the British - that they spend on average a mere 17 per cent of their income on food - is less likely to be true of the poor, but the food bought by the less well off is less wholesome. This is even more so in the United States, where fast-food joints cater mainly for poorer people, not skinny California celebs.

Eric Schlosser's best-selling analysis of the industry, Fast Food Nation , makes you wonder why the animal welfare lobby can spare the energy to pursue foie gras producers when the obvious problem is under their noses: the burger and chicken nugget joints, whose food is bad for animals and people.

Yet as the high-profile attempt to save the toothfish shows, our consciences as eaters are ever more sensitive. Ultimately it's a change we'll all share. We're pleasure eaters now, but if we're ready to pay for ethically produced, tasty food there's no reason why pleasure and principle can't share the same plate.

The ethics of pleasure eating

The plight of the endangered Patagonian toothfish, above , became news last week with the capture of the fishing vessel Viarsa after a chase lasting for more than 20 days. The ship was hunted by Australian and South African vessels and a British warship after fishing illegally for the species, whose popularity with Japanese and US gourmets has highlighted the pursuit of pleasure at the table.

It's not all easy. Pleasure eaters must examine their conscience and check the stylishness of their food, asking themselves such questions as:

Is this animal or fish an endangered species? Spurn the cod in favour of lemon sole.

Is it from the other end of the world? Think food miles.

Has it been produced in an environmentally friendly way? If it's not organic, was it produced in line with environmental standards, such as the Waitrose Leaf logo scheme?

How was it reared? There's a huge difference between bacon from Gloucester Old Spot pigs reared outdoors and the Danish sort from the supermarket.

Has it been produced in line with Fair Trade principles? Consider the welfare of the workers who produced the beans for your coffee.

Was it produced cruelly? Animal lovers get upset about the force-feeding of ducks and geese to produce foie gras , below.